News

The latest updates from our Party

Sen. Leah Vukmir's Ugly Record On Equal Pay

Posted April 4, 2017

Democrats believe that women's economic security and prosperity is crucial to our economic strength. While Democrats have worked for years to make equal pay for women a reality, Republicans like Sen. Leah Vukmir have only helped widen the gender pay gap by voting against Democrat's enforcement of equal pay legislation and voting to repeal that very legislation just three years later.

In 2009, then-Rep. Leah Vukmir voted against the Democratic-led legislature making it easier for victims of wage discrimination to have their day in court through the Equal Pay Enforcement Act. The legislation gave workers more avenues to press charges for pay discrimination.

Among its other provisions, the Equal Pay Enforcement Act allowed individuals to plead their cases in the less costly, more accessible state circuit court system, rather than just in federal court.

Just three years later, in 2012, Vukmir voted to repeal those equal pay enforcement provisions - effectively taking the teeth out of the legislation.

"Women should always receive the same pay when they do the same work as a man. This is a question of basic fairness," Democratic Party of Wisconsin spokesperson Brandon Weathersby said on Tuesday. "Yet today, women in Wisconsin earn only 78 cents for every dollar a man makes - and that gap is even larger for women of color. That’s why Democrats support strong paycheck protection laws in Wisconsin, and across the nation. Sen. Vukmir and her Republican colleagues should do the same."